America's welfare state is quietly evolving from needs-based to an employment-based safety net that rewards working families and fuels dreams of a better life, indicates a new study led by a Michigan State University (MSU) scholar.

The major reason: the little-known Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), a $65 billion federal tax-relief program for poor, working families. The program has been expanded dramatically during the past 25 years, while cash welfare has been sharply curtailed.

Some 9 million American families lost their homes to foreclosure during the late 2000s housing bust, driving many to economic ruin and in search of new residences. Hardest hit were black, Latino, and racially integrated neighborhoods, according to a new Cornell University analysis of the crisis.

Led by demographer Matthew Hall, researchers estimate racial segregation grew between Latinos and whites by nearly 50 percent and between blacks and whites by about 20 percent as whites abandoned and minorities moved into areas most heavily distressed by foreclosures.

People whose sexual identities changed toward same-sex attraction in early adulthood reported more symptoms of depression in a nationwide survey than those whose sexual orientations did not change or changed in the opposite direction, according to a new study by a University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) sociologist.

"Why doesn't she just leave?" is a timeworn question about women trapped in relationships with men who physically and/or emotionally abuse them. Economic dependence is clearly part of the story — many women lack the financial means to leave and find themselves trapped by both poverty and abuse.

Features include "Financial Foreclosures," "Fat Eggs or Fit Bodies," "God's Case for Sex," "Revisiting the Rationing of Medical Degrees in the United States," and "Activating Politics with Poetry and Spoken Word."

New research suggests a significant number of national and international American banks hired new Chief Risk Officers to mitigate risk but may have actually helped lead the industry into widespread insolvency.

Starting in the 1990s, many major banks hired Chief Risk Officers (CROs) in a response to new laws and regulations put in place following financial meltdowns in the 1980s. In an effort to comply, banking officials elevated risk analysts to corner offices to show they were serious about tackling risk.

Features include "Whitewashing the Working Class", "Forced and Coerced Cesarean Sections in the United States", "Desperation and Service in the Bail Industry", "Marketing Manhood in a "Post-Feminist" Age, and "Durkheim's "Suicide" in the Zombie Apocalypse."